Accepting assistance

Personal support team is necessary for success

It’s hard to believe, but the semester is just about over.

As a graduating senior, I find myself reminiscing about how I got to this point. While I have put a lot of personal effort into getting this far, I never could have made it all by myself. 

Throughout my time here — and even before it — I have had a considerable amount of support from many people.

First, from my parents, who encouraged me from an early age to get an education, then from University of Idaho administrators who helped me navigate university bureaucracy.

Throughout the years I’ve spent here, I’ve had professors who went beyond teaching to encourage me when I felt lost or out of place.

I may be making my own path in the world, but I’m certainly not walking alone.

There is no shame in needing help, but it’s not always easy to admit that you can’t do it all by yourself.

At times, it can be difficult to depend on other people. It means taking a risk and placing someone in the position of being able to let you down, but it isn’t possible to go through life completely independent and unaffected by others.

One of the iconic ideas in our culture is the “self-made man” — the person who starts at the bottom and works up to become an inventor, often overcoming great obstacles along the path to becoming a zillionaire.

As a society, we enjoy these stories of people triumphing over their environments and a once down-and-out individual “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.”

The only problem is that it’s not true — the self-made man doesn’t exist.

Yes, individual people are capable of incredible things, and yes, it’s possible to overcome powerful obstacles, but it’s unrealistic to think anyone can make it entirely on their own.

The way we tell stories about successful people often emphasizes the abilities of individuals. Consider Philo Farnsworth, widely considered as the inventor of television.

People remember him as the brilliant inventor who first came up with the idea in high school, but it’s easy to forget that he sought advice from his teacher, who could have squashed the idea, but instead encouraged him to keep working.

While individual achievements are important, success doesn’t exist in a vacuum — even on an individual level, success is a culmination of hard work on the part of the individual and support from people around them.

The good news is that in settings like UI, it’s not hard to find people who are willing to help. Many of the faculty and staff at UI have chosen to work in this sort of environment specifically because they want to help students succeed. Students should take the time to reach out to these people.

For me and many other Vandals, being able to reach out for help has made all the difference while attending UI.

Daphne Jackson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @DaphneNJackson

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